One of the biggest misconceptions hovering around the upcoming Floyd Mayweather vs. Juan Manuel Marquez fight is the notion that Mayweather handpicked an easy opponent to collect a check. You can ask any *real* boxing fan around about Marquez and they should have him in their top 5 pound for pound. If I had to pick a winner between the two, I’d choose Mayweather easily, but when you take the following factors into account, the outcome may not be so cut-and-dry anymore.

1. Floyd is coming off a 2 year layoff – I don’t care who you are, if you step out of the ring for 2 years theres going to be a little bit of rust when you come back. Another thing to consider is that boxers can literally turn old in ONE fight (see Roy Jones Jr.), it’s always a dangerous decision to take long layoffs when you’re over the age of 30. Floyd’s saving grace *may* be that he walks around in shape at all times, he doesn’t need to drop 20-30 pounds for a comeback fight.

2. Floyd is nursing a rib injury - There’s a conspiracy theory floating around that Mayweather created this rib injury out of thin air because ticket sales for the bout was low, but it almost exclusively comes from fanatical Floyd haters. The type of rib cartilage injury could be a huge hindrance if it’s not fully healed by the time fight night is here on September 19th. Floyd is not an offensive powerhouse, he relies on quickness, reflexes, and defensive counter punching to win fights. This injury could potentially slow him down just enough to make the bout closer than we all expected.

3. Roger Mayweather’s troubles with the law - In case you hadn’t heard, Floyd’s uncle/trainer Roger Mayweather was arrested yesterday for laying the smack down on a woman. This issue wouldn’t be a problem in normal circumstances, but it does serve as another dark cloud hovering over this fight. Will it serve as a distraction in camp?

4. Is Floyd overlooking Marquez for Pacquiao? - I’ve mentioned this before, but if you pay attention to all the pre-fight press on this bout you’ll notice Floyd spends more time fielding questions about Manny Pacquiao than he does on his current opponent. None of us know what Floyd does behind closed doors to prepare for Marquez, but if outward actions are any indication he clearly isn’t worried about Marquez in the slightest.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, in an ideal situation Floyd would win this fight with his eyes closed (he’s just that good), but this situation is getting further and further away from ideal. At this point my prediction for the winner still hasn’t changed, but I will say I would NOT be surprised if we all witnessed a huge upset next month.

I’m probably the biggest Mayweather fan out there, but I can’t co-sign any of what you’re about to read for reasons I will explain at the bottom of the post. But during a press conference promoting his upcoming fight against Juan Manuel Marquez, he offered these statements about MMA and Manny Pacquiao.

“You can’t take my shoes off, and take my shirt off and throw me in a cage. You do that with animals, you don’t do that with humans,” said a bold Mayweather. “It takes true skills to be in the sport of boxing.”

While Mayweather probably should have stopped his brash statements there — he didn’t, saying MMA was created by white fighters who couldn’t cut it in the ring.

“In boxing, we know who’s dominating. Black fighters and Hispanic fighters is dominating in this sport,” Mayweather continued. “And this is not a racial statement but there’s no white fighters in boxing that’s dominating, so they had to go to something else and start something new.”

Mayweather was then asked about a potential fight with Manny Pacquiao and offered these words:

“Everybody wants to see the Pacquiao fight, but it doesn’t work like that. Pacquiao isn’t his own boss and he’s giving up 27 percent of his money to Bob Arum,” Mayweather said. “Once he becomes his own boss, then we can talk. If he’s not his own boss I ain’t got nothing to say to him.”

I’m not sure if many people actually saw it, but HBO aired this teaser for Mayweather/Marquez 24/7 after the Cotto/Clottey fight on Saturday night and it was EXCELLENT. Although it only consisted of old footage of Floyd talking shit mixed with new footage of Floyd talking shit, it still made for the most entertaining 3 minutes of my weekend (I could make so many jokes here). I was extremely hyped for the 24/7 series as well as the actual fight on July 18th…. and then this happens:

Floyd Mayweather Jr., set to exit his year-plus retirement to face Juan Manuel Marquez on July 18 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, suffered a rib injury in training late last week, forcing him to postpone the welterweight fight on Sunday.

“I am extremely disappointed that this fight has to be postponed,” Mayweather (39-0, 25 KOs) said in a statement. “I was training very hard and looking forward to getting back in the ring.”

These sort of things happen all the time (most recently with David Haye) and theres really nothing anyone can do about it. The good news is, we know its not a broken or fractured rib so Floyd’s recovery shouldn’t last any more than 2 months. The rumored reschedule date is in mid-September and I’m praying that it’ll actually stick. For a fighter who relies on defense as much as Floyd does it would be suicide for him to go into a bout at anything less than 100%.

If you didn’t get to see Marquez and Diaz battle tonight, you missed out on one of the best lightweight battles since Corrales vs. Castillo in 2005.

Diaz dominated the first half of the fight and was on the verge of knocking out Marquez, but Juan Manuel showed guts and eventually turned everything around. The blistering uppercut that eventually knocked Diaz out was worth uploading to YouTube, so I got it for you guys..

Marquez also called out Floyd Mayweather during his victory interview… but don’t hold your breath on that one.